Military widow in shock over husband’s sudden death

Sabine Ward has been a military widow for a year. Her husband wasn’t killed by an IED or an enemy bullet. The Sgt. First Class E-7 combat medic survived tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he wasn’t out of danger when he retired in 2011 after 20 years in the service. Clayton Ward lost his life at home to PTSD in 2013.

His widow says she didn’t see his suicide coming. Sabine Ward believed more treatment could have prevented it. She is telling her story now, hoping to save other military families from the grief she lives with every day.

In the months before he died, she says the easy-going, fun-loving man she met and married in 2004, the man who could light up the room when he walked in, disappeared. He was no longer the man she knew.

Despite regular appointments with a psychiatrist and psychologist at Fort Sam, he became increasingly agitated. He took the drugs the doctors prescribed but didn’t get better. When she questioned him, he would rail at her: “What more can I do? I’m doing everything they tell me. I’m working with professionals.” She says he never threatened her in spite of his growing confusion and frantic behavior.

He bought a gun, which surprised her; because he told her when he retired in 2011 that he didn’t believe in them anymore. She called his doctors at the VA so she could tell them he was getting worse but her calls weren’t returned.

On the day Clay Ward killed himself; she tried to reach him at their home but got no answer. She had spent the night with a friend, unable to deal with his frantic mood swings. Alarmed, she asked the friend to go with her to check on him.

At the friend’s insistence, the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department sent two deputies along as the women drove to the Ward’s newly built “dream home” in La Vernia. The deputies went in to search the house. They found Clay Ward’s body in the backyard swimming pool with a gunshot wound in the temple.

Describing the moment floods Sabine Ward with pain.

“I was like, why? Why did this happen? We had everything we always wanted.”

And then, she’s talking to him again: “Why? Why? Why? You had so many options. Why didn’t you let me know you were so desperate?”

Sabine Ward wants to start an organization for veterans and their families to prevent suicides and help survivors. She asked us to spread the word. We wish her luck as she puts her life back together and focuses on that goal.

She sent us Clay Ward’s picture. It was taken before he got PTSD. He looks like a guy without a care in the world. Why wasn’t there a way to save him?